[media-credit id=75 align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Austin’s Barley Swine does pig — and other meat products, such as this shrimp dish — just fine. And then some.

Austin has become a bit of a home away from home for me in the last couple of years, and so while the Denver Post’s Reverb group heads down there annually for SXSW, I hit the original keep-it-weird town several times a year to visit friends and check out the music scene at other times when it’s not so crowded and crazy.

My friends are former Coloradans, and they and their daughters are delightfully agreeable about letting me and my daughters use their place as a way for us to get away from our hamster-wheel lives.

It helps that they all have the same basic outlook on life, which is this: it’s best when it involves people you love, excellent food and drink (but not necessarily fancy), just enough exercise and travel, great books and music (but not necessarily fancy), a houseful of pets and enough sleep. The rest is just blah-blah.

So keeping all of that in mind, our visits usually involve some combination of all of the above. It helps that round-trip flights from Denver on Frontier can often be found in the $150-$200 range. And then there’s the 15-hour drive – best done over two days — and that has its own weird charms (hello, Amarillo and Lubbock!).

[media-credit name=”Provided by Pink Vail” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Things got crowded after the Celebration Ski Down, led by Jack Eck in waves of 75-100 at a time in the afternoon, before the big party in Arrabelle Square with live music.

A service of Vail Valley Medical Center, Shaw does everything from diagnostics to the whole range of treatment options, and also offers Jack’s Place, a nonprofit, no-charge lodging next door for patients and their families to stay during treatment.

[media-credit name=”Provided by Pink Vail” align=”alignright” width=”200″][/media-credit] Part of the fun was checking out the outrageous outfits, in pink, of course.

Jack’s Place is named after Vail resident, retired doctor and longtime ski patroller Jack Eck, 70, who made the cancer center happen 12 years ago (he’s humble, but it’s true, and he has quite a story – he basically convinced the Shaw family to donate $17 million to build the center, but his life story is quite a tale, as well, and seems to be a continual series of people wanting to help him make things happen).

[media-credit name=”Provided by the Travel Channel” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Kevin Michael Connolly, with the trademark skateboard that he uses to get around, takes a break from filming in Hawaii.

No legs? No problem, says Kevin Michael Connolly, who was born without ’em, and at age 27, probably has accomplished more than most people twice his age with all of their limbs intact.

Let’s list a few: Traveled around the world? Check. Written a memoir? Check. Had his photography exhibited at the Smithsonian? Check. Won silver at the X-Games in Aspen, dived off a 40-foot cliff, surfed, zip-lined, river-rafted…Yeah, yeah. Check, check, check, check, check.

Now Connolly has his own TV show, “Armed & Ready,” which premieres Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 10|9c on the Travel Channel (check out a slideshow of photos from the show). The premise? He travels around the globe again – the same way he has since he was a kid, without a wheelchair or prosthetics – attempting all kinds of crazy adventures, usually with the help of engineers and scientists who MacGyver all sorts of devices to get him through it.

[media-credit id=75 align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit] This is an actual campsite really far away from parking lots or artisanal cheeses. The dog, who hiked several miles to get to this choice spot, would be annoyed to know that a dual-sport motorcycle was an option.

Apparently what Weaver hilariously calls “gentlebros” ante up $2,500 ($3,500 if they want to rent a dual-sport motorcycle) for three days (three days!) of what the WC’s website calls “off-the-grid” camping, “gourmet cuisine” and “a film crew documenting the entire adventure.”

For laughs that will last you several hours — my favorite quote: “It’s almost as if the wild was designed as a proving ground for men” — watch the short video that Gawker cobbled together from what the WC offers to show how the participants “reclaim masculinity through adventure” by doing things like throwing axes against dead trees in Sequoia National Forest and caramelizing ribs with a blowtorch on the grill.

I don’t know what you spent on your last camping trip, but even when I’ve swung by Marczyk Fine Foods and loaded up on lobster tails (no blowtorch needed), fancy salads and really great chocolate, I’ve been hard-pressed to break, say, $500 on a long weekend camping trip for about 6-8 people, and that includes booze.

Then again, we didn’t have a film crew along.

Kyle Wagner is the editor of the Travel and OutWest sections at The Denver Post.

Part of the Im’Unique program, this yoga series is part of Illustrating Union Yoga Tours, classes meant to attract people of all ethnicities and income levels from around Colorado. The sessions take place in museums across the Denver-Metro Area and are designed for all ages and all skill levels, including those new to the discipline.

Remember when Outside magazine was about adventure sports and not trying to be the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue?

Lindsey Vonn in a bathing suit on the February cover of Outside magazine elicited no surprise responses around the office. The women were annoyed, the men delighted.

When did Outside stop being about adventure sports and start being a cross between Maxim and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue?

The ski racer — remember, she skis for a living! — is holding a jump rope like it’s a whip, and showing way more cleavage than, as one co-worker put it, “you would ever see in ski wear.” Inside, she’s photographed in a pseudo-dominatrix outfit.

[media-credit id=75 align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] More than 1,800 people registered to run in the first Commitment Day event held Jan. 1 in Denver.

Getting up before, say, noon on New Year’s Day isn’t most people’s idea of a good time, but running a 5K at 9 a.m. on Jan. 1 turned out to be the perfect way to start 2013.

This was the first Commitment Day run (commitmentday.com) put on by Life Time Fitness, which rolled out in Denver and 25 other cities last week, with 39,016 signed up to run nationwide, according to Lauren Flinn, public relations specialist for Life Time. More than 1,500 were said to have actually shown up in Denver, but 1,820 had registered, with a portion of their $39 fee going toward a handful of charities (you could also waive your registration and instead enter by fundraising a larger entry fee for charity).

As usual, groups in tutus and other costumes turned out to have a good time, and it wasn’t a race, so families were walking with strollers and. My family — including one teen who began under some protest but ended smiling — ran the whole way if only to stay warm in the starting temperature of 18 degrees.

Denver residents Kaitlin Pianowski and Michael Bermel knew their trip to Cancun was going to be “magical,” they say, but they never expected it to be this special.

As they were checking in for their flight home at Cancun International Airport yesterday, they were informed by the gate agent that they were going to be upgraded to First Class. Why? Because the computer had determined that Pianowski was the 14 millionth passenger in 2012.

“We were in shock,” Pianowski says. “We were led to security, where we met the director of tourism, the director of sales for the airport, and the director of the Cancun Airport. A woman then appeared dressed in traditional clothing with a banner congratulating me on being the 14 millionth passenger.”

Travel and OutWest editor Kyle Wagner grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Lake County, Ill., and Naples, Fla., before moving to Denver in 1993, where she reviewed restaurants for Westword before moving to The Denver Post in 2002. She considers the best days to be those that involve her teenage daughters and doing something outside, preferably mountain biking or whitewater rafting.

Dean Krakel is a photo editor (primarily sports) at The Denver Post. A native of Wyoming, he has authored three books, "Season of the Elk," "Downriver" and "Krakel's West." An avid kayaker, rafter, mountain biker, trail runner, telemark skier and backpacker, Dean's outdoor adventures have taken him around the world.

Douglas Brown was raised about 30 miles west of Philadelphia in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he spent a lot of time running around in the woods and fields (where he hunted and explored), and in the ocean (where he surfed and stared at the horizon). Now he lives in Boulder and spends as much time hiking, running, skiing and boarding the High Country (and the Boulder foothills) as possible.

Ricardo Baca is the entertainment editor and pop music critic at The Denver Post, as well as the founder and executive editor of Reverb and the co-founder of The UMS. Happy days often involve at least one of these: whitewater rafting, snowshoeing, vintage Vespas, writing, camping, live music, road trips, snowboarding or four-wheeling.